Mort Zuckerman’s Clip File, Just In Case Republicans Want to Check

February 26, 2010

So Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman is reaching out to State Republican chair Ed Cox and ex-governor George Pataki to see if he can run for U.S. Senate on the party’s line.

He should send them his clips.

The Newsendorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and, if there’s one editorial in Mort’s paper we can guarantee he personally approved, it’s this one.

It said that the Republican Party “ran the U.S. onto the rocks.” The Bush presidency “enriched the wealthy over the working and middle classes with excessive tax cuts, gorged on spending; failed to address America’s energy needs and global warming; undermined the credibility of U.S. military power, and got blindsided by the Wall Street meltdown, thanks in part to deregulatory zeal.”

“The Republican Party has precious little credibility in laying claim to continued leadership,” said the editorial, which is supposed to express the opinions of owner/publisher Mort. The state party committee that may soon be asked to consider Zuckerman as its candidate will also be happy to hear that his newspaper declared in the Obama endorsement that it’s “a solid idea to raise the low tax rates enjoyed by the wealthy.”

Shortly before the endorsement, the editorial page also blasted House Republicans for their opposition to the bailout proposals, noting that they “seem ready to go down with the ship and take all of us with them.” Since real estate titan Zuckerman had a lot to lose in the meltdown — with the sinking of prime tenants of his like Citigroup — he made sure his page hoisted the banks on its back.

The News even did an editorial that November referring to the Bush administration as yesterday’s news, except for its continuing obligation “to prevent major banking houses like Citigroup from collapsing.” The paper didn’t disclose that Citigroup was renting over a million square feet from our soon-to-be senator, who actually went on MSNBC three times in one day to echo his editorial page and lobby for Citigroup’s rescue.

The News‘ attitude about New York Republicans wasn’t much different. Under the headline “Bankrupt Buffoons,” the paper wrote: “Starting with former governor George Pataki, and continuing with former Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and his successor, Dean Skelos, top Republicans abandoned their party’s lean-government, low-tax principles.” It said these three “stripped their label of all meaning” and “cut cynical deals with special interests.” In another editorial, the News even accused Skelos of “engaging in naked political bribery,” floating the bribery charge repeatedly in editorials that accused him of trying to hang on to senate control in late 2008 by offering payoffs to get Democrats to cross the aisle.

It’s unclear which is stranger — that Zuckerman wants the ballot line of a party that ran the country onto the rocks or that the party might give it to him.